I was a little bit stunned when I ripped the top page off of my Steelers desk top calender this morning. It really is February. I don’t want to add to the billions of people who remark on how time flies, but gosh, it really does. I’m getting whiplash from the days flying by like they are.

I was awakened this morning by S’s mother, Mrs. S. We usually sleep until 6:40 and we have four alarms between the two of us to make sure we don’t oversleep. My cell phone alarm is the alarm of last resort. It is the last to go off, several minutes after the others, just in case. It is set to ring like the usual ring tone because I will never sleep through a ringing phone. If I am asleep and the phone rings, my body reacts instantly, thinking that it must be an emergency phone call.

When the phone rang this morning I was startled. None of the other alarms had started to wake me up. I thought we must have really overslept. But when I looked at the phone screen it read: Mrs. S Cell calling 6:13 am. Oh crap! Someone is dead! There has been a fire! We need to donate blood! Oh crap!

But no. No emergency. Mrs. S was just calling to see how our weather was. Big winter storm in our part of the country overnight and her city was covered with ice. Ours got snow and freezing rain. Mrs. S has a two hour delay from work and just wanted to know what we were up to, whether S’s school had been delayed or canceled, you know, great 6:00 am chit-chat…

Since I was up extra early I started our winter storm ritual of checking the different news broadcasts for school closings and delays. 198 schools in our area were closed but not S’s. Her school never cancels. It’s part of their school pride that they get the most out of every single educational day, no matter how deep the snow, no matter how icy the roads. I would commend them for that if I didn’t enjoy snow days so much.